Four Fun Robot Toys from Mego’s Micronauts Line

In this last installment of my year-end series about cool robot toys from Japan, I've decided to look back at one of the classics: Takara’s Microman line, which was released in the U.S. in the late '70s by Mego under the name Micronauts. Micronauts was a contemporary of another line of imported Japanese robot toys, Mattel’s Shogun Warriors, and both lines even had comic book series published by Marvel. While Shogun Warriors featured Super Robots from several anime series that had pilots and combination configurations, that toy line didn’t have any pilot figures or robot figures with combination capabilities; in contrast, Micronauts provided the first examples of mech and combiner robot toys to kids in the U.S. Read on for a look at four of Micronauts’ groundbreaking toys.

Before getting into the list of noteworthy Micronauts toys, it should be noted that Takara’s Microman line was a spin-off of another innovative robot toy line, Henshin Cyborg. Henshin Cyborg figures were modeled after Hasbro’s line of 12-inch G.I. Joe action figures from the '60s and '70s, but they differed from Hasbro’s figures in two significant ways: They were made with transparent plastic so kids could see the figures’ mechanical insides, and they had magnetic joints that allowed for greater flexibility and disassembly/reassembly.

A Henshin Cyborg figure.

The Microman toy line was a miniaturized version of the Henshin Cyborg line, and the modularity of the Henshin Cyborg figures carried over to the modularity of the Microman/Micronauts vehicles, robots and playsets. Even though the Micronauts line ended during the early ’80s, Takara continued the Microman line in Japan for many more years. Some of the later Microman toys would also become part of Hasbro’s Transformers toy line. While Takara’s Microman line features plenty of great robot toys, I am only including on this list the toys that were released in U.S. under the Micronauts line.


Biotron

Biotron is an early example of a combiner mech toy. It can be “piloted” by a smaller 3 ¾-inch Micronaut figure, and it can be disassembled into a tank and a rocket sled. It also required two C batteries, which allowed Biotron to roll in tank mode and walk in robot mode.

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Microtron

Microtron is like Biotron in that it is also battery-power and can be re-arranged from a robot configuration to a vehicle configuration. Microtron’s head opens to form as seat for a Mirconaut pilot in both robot and vehicle configurations.

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Giant Acroyear

Giant Acroyear was an amazing combiner robot toy: It consisted of two humanoid robots, a missile-launching rocket plane and a missile-launching land vehicle that combined into a single large robot. Years before kids heard of Voltron, they had the Micronauts’ Giant Acroyear.

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Hornetroid

Hornetroid was one of the later releases in the Micronauts line. It was designed by Mego and not Takara, so it had no Microman counterpart. Even though it looks like a vehicle toy, Hornetroid is basically a giant flying robot that looks like an insect, complete with flapping transparent wings, six retractable legs, and figure-gripping pinchers.


For more information about the Micronauts and Microman toy lines, check out Innerspace Online and the Microman Forever site.

Getting it Right with Getter Robo Toys

Because I live in the U.S. and not Japan, my first introduction to combiner robots came through Japanese toy lines that were imported into the U.S. during the '80s: Gobots, Transformers and Voltron. Since each of these toy lines had its own cartoon series, it was generally assumed that if you saw a group of vehicles or robots combining together to form a gigantic robot in the cartoon, there was also a toy available that could do the same thing. After all, who would taunt potential toy buyers with a cartoon that showed vehicles and robots doing something that their toy versions couldn't do, right?

What I didn't know at the time and only found out recently was that the concept of a combiner robot actually began in the '70 with a manga and anime series called Getter Robo. In Getter Robo, three combat jets would combine together to form a giant robot; depending on the sequence of the jets' combination, a different giant robot would be formed. Getter Robo was very popular and it spawned plenty of merchandise and numerous anime and manga sequels; in fact, these toys were also included in Mattel's Shogun Warriors line.

However, there's a drawback to the first Getter Robo that's peculiar for a Japanese combiner robot: For as ground-breaking as the combiner robot idea was at the time, no one seemed to know exactly how the combat jets could come together to form anything, let alone a giant robot. As you can see from the video clip below, even the animators behind the original anime series had to take significant shortcuts during the jet combination sequences.

From what I can gather, the dominant attitude towards the first Getter Robo toys and model kits is that companies would produce the jets and the giant robots, but they wouldn't produce jets that could combine to form a giant robot. Apparently, this approach worked, but it seems very strange when compared to the countless combiner robots toys that Getter Robo influenced. Subsequent jet and robot designs for most of the sequels were much more detailed and provided clear views of how the jets combine, but the early designs for Getter Robo are astonishingly vague in their combination mechanics.

Of course, if you really, really want to collect toy replicas of the original Getter Robo jets that can combine into various robot configurations, you can--but it will cost you. The Perfect Change Getter Robo set, the most detailed and scale-accurate combining toy based on the original Getter Robo design, costs hundreds of dollars. The cheapest set, Dynamic Change Getter Robo, is a chibi-scale interpretation of the original design and it costs over $100.

The Perfect Change Getter Robo set.

The Dynamic Change Getter Robo set.

The problem with Getter Robo toys sort of reminds me of the Transformers Masterpiece collection. The animators who worked on the first Transformers cartoon took many liberties with the toy robot designs in order to create robot characters, all of the purpose of selling the toys. Now, decades later, Transformers fans can by transforming toy robots that look exactly like they did from the original cartoon from the '80s, but each Masterpiece figure costs several times the amount of a regular transforming toy robot.

Figures from the Transformers Masterpiece collection.

The Mighty Miniature Robots of Machine Robo

Sometimes, I don't know what I would do without the Internet, particularly when I look up things that were well-known at one time but have since faded into obscurity. In the ancient times when print media ruled the information landscape, it could take up to days, weeks, and even months to track down publications that mention trends or products that are no longer considered popular by mainstream culture. With the Internet, the same kind of search can only take a few hours or even minutes, especially because amateur writers can publish whatever they want online without being solely driven or restricted by profit.

This intro brings me to the topic of this post, Bandai's Machine Robo toy line. Machine Robo started in 1982 and it was one of the earliest toy lines based on robots that can transform into vehicles. Bandai started exporting these toys to other countries in 1983, and Tonka distributed them in the United States under its Gobots line. As anyone who grew up in the '80s knows, Tonka's Gobots quickly faded when they competed against Hasbro's more popular Transformers line, another group of transforming robot toys imported from Japan. Yet while the Gobots vanished from American pop culture during 80s, I discovered via the Internet that Bandai's original Machine Robo line kept going in Japan throughout the following decades. Read on for more thoughts on Machine Robo and what makes it so resilient in the face of other more popular toy robot lines.

Honestly, you could write a master's level thesis paper on how badly Tonka handled the import and marketing of Machine Robo toys. From its poor coordination with Bandai to its partnership with Hanna-Barbera in creating a lackluster cartoon to help sell the toys, Tonka's Gobots line was inevitably doomed against Hasbro, which partnered with Toei Animation and Marvel Comics (which had previous experience with Japanese robot toys through Mattel's Shogun Warriors line) in creating the marketing campaign for the Transformers line. In the end, many American toy buyers from that time remember Gobots as the simpler, inferior version of the Transformers. While that may be true to some extent (Tonka's incompetent marketing certainly didn't help), that's not a completely fair assessment of Machine Robo toys. While the Transformers had a better marketing campaign and more sophisticated designs, I think that Machine Robo/Gobots were the superior toys for three important reasons: price, durability and scale.

Price: Because the Gobots were sold at cheaper prices than Transformers, many concluded that a cheaper price must have meant a lower-quality product. Yet by selling most of the Gobot figures at $3.00, kids could quickly build an army of transforming robots for the same price it would cost to get a handful of the main characters from the Transformers line. It's like comparing Hasbro's G.I. Joe toy line to generic army men toys: The army men might not have marketing support of Hasbro or the G.I. Joe brand name, but their cheaper price makes it easier to build huge armies and wage epic, imaginary battles.

Fun trivia fact: The original line of small Machine Robo figures were 

called the "600 Series", because each figure cost 600 yen.

Durability: Most of the robot figures in the Gobots line were simple in their design and had a significant portion of die-cast metal in them, which made them perfect for rigorous play. Much like the die-cast Matchbox and Hot Wheels vehicle toys, kids could "wreck" the Gobots in all sorts of ways and they'd still remain viable as play items. In contrast, the Transformers toys relied more on plastic than die-cast metal; while the high usage of plastic probably kept their production costs down, it also made them much more fragile. I owned one of the more complicated Autobot car toys when I was a kid and for as cool as it looked, all it took was one unfortunate tumble off of a table to break one of its weaker yet transformation-essential parts. This kind of problem didn't happen with the handful of Gobot figures that I had, since they were just as durable as the die-cast metal toy cars I collected.

Scale: Of all their advantages, scale was the most important for Machine Robo/Gobots. Their small size kept their prices low and added to their durability, and keeping them at a fairly uniform scale presented more opportunities for play. Some larger-sized Machine Robo/Gobots were released as part of the line, but most of the figures were between three to four inches tall. Not only did their small size make them easier to store and transport, but it also allowed for cool playsets. Furthermore, because the smaller figures were roughly the same scale as Matchbox and Hot Wheels toys, kids could use the playsets, track sets and vehicle launchers from those lines for their Gobots figures--say, imagining the robots battling each other near a multi-level parking garage or on an aircraft carrier.

A vintage Machine Robo playset.

Tonka's failed Gobots line is part of Machine Robo's history, but that's hardly the end of it. Even as Tonka was desperately trying to keep space on toy store shelves for it Gobots, Bandai released new kinds of Machine Robo toys and launched the 47 episode anime series, Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos. Chronos gave Bandai the opportunity to rerelease older figures and significantly redesign previous figures.

The MR-03 Jet Robo from the Machine Robo 600 series ...

... and its Chronos-inspired redesign.

The Chronos anime series also introduced new Machine Robo figures, such as an evil transforming combiner robot called Devil Satan 6. (Yes, a robot with a name that includes the words "devil" and "Satan"--how cool is that?).

Devil Satan 6--six evil robots in one!

Chronos was followed by other anime series based on the Machine Robo line--including Machine Robo: Battle Hackers and Machine Robo Rescue--each with varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, the anime series kept Machine Robo going in Japan, even though it had disappeared everywhere else. In particular, Machine Robo Rescue added some interesting new combiner designs to the Machine Robo line.

Left to right: TMR-01WL Wing Liner and TMR-02SG Siren Garry,

two deluxe transport/combiner robots from Machine Robo Rescue.

One of the key selling points for the Machine Robo Rescue line was its series of five-robot combiner sets. These sets featured one transforming robot and four look-alike transforming drones that combined into a single larger robot; however, the components from each of the five-robot combiner sets could be connected to each other, which allowed kids to assemble the robots into a wide variety of larger machines.

Transforming robots and drones from three Machine Robo Rescue combiner sets ...

... and one of their many possible forms of combination.

Taking a cue from its previous Rescue series, Bandai's most recent success was with the Machine Robo Mugenbine line, a line that placed a heavier emphasis on combination than transformation. As described on the Machine Robo Mugenbine Wikipedia page, "The majority of the series consists of figures called Mugenroids, basic block-proportioned figures that can contort and fold into various shapes, most notably a perfect cube, to form the core of its various modes. ... Rather than the traditional shape changing method of previous figures, Mugenbine uses numerous interlocking pegs and sockets to attach and remove components and relocate them in order to form different modes. While all figures have at least two official alternate modes and most have official combinations with one to three other figures, the concept of the line is to allow you to assemble your own animal and machine creations and build your own robots of various size and numbers of sets, an activity encouraged by Bandai to the point where figures with no official combiner modes come with larger head parts to help create your own."

A Machine Robo Mugenbine set of combiner robots.

Think of a robot-centric system of Lego bricks, and that's the Machine Robo Mugenbine line in a nutshell. The first Mugenbine toys appeared in 2003 and they were such a hit for Bandai that it released several additional Mugenbine series in the years since. The flexibility of the Mugenbine toys has encouraged fans to build increasingly ambitious super combiner robots, as seen in the pictures below.

The Counter-X site features a very comprehensive section devoted to Machine Robo/Gobots, including a historical review of the toys, robot figure reviews, and scans from catalog pages. Additional Machine Robo/Gobots toy reviews can be found at Collection DX, Random Toy Reviews, and Hisparobot.

Great Moments in Toy Robot History: Shogun Warriors

The origins of popular and recurring trends in pop culture can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint, especially trends that have gone on for so long that they become an accepted fixture of everyday life. For this post, I'm talking about Japanese robot toys that are imported and sold in the U.S. I'm sure robot fans who are around my age will remember how Japanese robot toys dominated the shelves of toy stores during the 80s, but the trend of U.S. toy companies securing the rights to sell Japanese robot toys in North America actually began in the 70s with Mattel's Shogun Warriors. While the Shogun Warriors line didn't last long, its influence would impact the toy industry for decades to come. Read on for my retrospective of this trend-setting toy line.

The idea of importing toys from one country and then selling them in another is not a new idea unto itself. However, what made the Shogun Warriors different was that included merchandise from many different points of origin but was sold under a single brand name. Mattel marketed the robot toys as if they all inhabited the same shared universe but they actually originated from over a dozen different Japanese "Super Robot" anime series, series such as Brave Raideen, Gaiking and Voltes V.

To encourage the perception of a unified product line, Mattel gave the licensing rights to Marvel Comics to create a Shogun Warriors comic book series, where the robots coexisted as a single force for good against an evil alien force. There was also a syndicated cartoon series called Force Five that was set up to show five of the anime series upon which the Shogun Warrior toys were based. Unfortunately, the Shogun Warriors line was winding down by the time Force Five made it to the air and only a handful of TV markets carried the series for the brief time that it ran.

Not to limit itself to Super Robot anime, Mattel also secured the rights to Godzilla and Rodan, two monsters from famous Japanese Atomic Age kaiju movies, so that they could be added to the Shogun Warriors line as monsters for the giant robots to fight. As far as I know, Shogun Warriors is the only toy line that has combined Super Robot anime with live-action kaiju films; from that perspective, Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim (2013) could also have been named Shogun Warriors: The Movie.

A Godzilla figure from the Shogun Warriors line, complete with 

launching spring-loaded claw and extendable tongue of fire.

Shogun Warrior robots came in three different sizes: 24 inches, 5 inches, and 3.5 inches. Even though the 24-inch robots are what most people remember about the Shogun Warriors line, you could see some items from the robot toys' original anime series in the Shogun Warriors' "Action Vehicle" toys. For example, the Rydoto Action Vehicle was actually from the Brave Raideen anime series and the Kargosaur Action Vehicle was from Gaiking.

 

Curiously, some of the Shogun Warrior Action Vehicle toys had nothing to do with any Super Robot anime series; they were just toys that Mattel apparently decided to include in the line anyway because they looked similar enough to the robots. After all, none of the anime series upon which the Shogun Warriors toy line was based aired on U.S. television during most of the line's release, so it wasn't as if the kids who were buying the toys would know the difference.

The Shogun Warriors' Heli-Capter Action Vehicle 

(Japanese TV show of origin unknown).

The Shogun Warriors line didn't last long and completely disappeared from toy stores within a few years of its launch. Regardless, its approach to licensing Japanese robot toys in bulk was also used by other toy and model kit lines that were released in the U.S. during the 80s:

* Hasbro's Transformers line was a combination of Takara Tomy's Diaclone and Microman lines, and the Transformers marketing campaign depicted the robots and sentient beings from another planet.

* Matchbox's Voltron line was a combination of robot toys from three anime series: Beast King GoLion, Armored Fleet Dairugger XV and Lightspeed Electroid Albegas. However, when the Voltron cartoon series was assembled to help promote the toy line, footage from Albegas was not included.

* Revell's line of Robotech model kits combined robot kits from three anime series as well: Fang of the Sun Dougram, Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Super Dimension Century Orguss. Yet when the Robotech cartoon was assembled, footage from Dougram and Orguss were not used and Macross was edited together with footage from Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.

One of Revell's Robotech model kits that's originally from 

the Fang of the Sun Dougram anime series.

Over time, the concept of mashing together Super Robot anime series into a single line of merchandise eventually made it back Japan itself with the arrival of Super Robot Wars in 1991. Super Robot Wars is a series of tactical role-playing video games where players can choose from a selection of Super Robots from various anime and manga series. This selection also includes the titular robots from Mazinger Z and Getter Robo, two of the robots that were also featured in the Shogun Warriors toy line. The Super Robot Wars game series continues to this day, and has since expanded to include anime and manga series of its own.

To learn more about the Shogun Warriors, check out the following fan sites:

* Wildtoy's Shogun Warriors Page

* Weird Science-Fantasy's Shogun Warriors Page

* Ted Terranova's Robot Page.

A Shogun Warriors Halloween Costume.

Big 'Bots and Belligerent Behemoths Clash in Pacific Rim (2013)

Since I'm planning to wrap up 2013 with a look back at a few examples of Japanese robot toys--one of my favorite kind of toys--I thought I would kick off this year-end series of posts with a review of Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim, one of the big-budget releases from last summer that I missed when it was playing in the theaters.

Summer blockbusters have never been held in high regard by the film critic community, and such critics have been particularly displeased with Hollywood's over-usage of CGI effects to produce increasingly bigger and louder blockbuster movies. To be sure, such criticism is not entirely inaccurate: CGI does permit the creation of larger-scale environments and set pieces in ways that miniatures, matte paintings and other practical effect techniques could never allow. As such, CGI has enabled the production of many, many summer blockbusters that are enormous in terms of spectacle but conspicuously short in terms of creative ideas and conceptual depth. Pacific Rim is not one of those movies, because del Toro eagerly packs every frame of his film with enough details and ideas that fans who know what they're looking at will be reviewing this movie for years to come. Pacific Rim is a "big" in every sense of the term--big CGI, big landscapes, big battles, big ideas, and big ambition. In fact, I can't think of how any other special effects technique other than CGI could have accommodated del Toro's story.

In a nutshell, Pacific Rim is about a group of pilots, military leaders, scientists and technicians who build and operate giant robots called "Jaegers" that are designed to fight a seemingly endless series of giant monsters called "Kaiju" that have been emerging out of the Pacific Ocean for years to regularly trash the nearest city. The movie takes places during the closing days of the Kaiju war, when the Jaeger team is planning its final offensive that promises to put an end to the Kaiju menace.

Pacific Rim is a well-made film in every aspect: a well-written script, a well-cast ensemble of actors, and a well-directed approach to the material. Yet to really appreciate this movie, one has to understand that it is a tribute to Japan's "Super Robot" fantasy-science fiction genre and its "Real Robot" spin-off subgenre. Super Robot and Real Robot anime and manga usually involve giant robots that are piloted by human beings to fight giant monsters, other giant robots, or both. The Super Robot genre began in the mid-50s with the manga series Tetsujin 28, and it has continued with popular titles such as Mazinger Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, Patlabor and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

One of Pacific Rim's Super Robots, complete with "Rocket Punch" action.

Pacific Rim also draws inspiration from Japan's kaiju movies (ergo the collective name of the giant monsters in Rim), and the monster designs in the movie demonstrate how much del Toro and his production crew love and understand kaiju films such as Godzilla and Mothra. Nevertheless, most of the film's other details--the characters, their technology, the situations they face and the world they inhabit--are clearly modeled after Super Robot and Real Robot narratives. To put it another way, Pacific Rim is to Super Robot and Real Robot stories as Star Wars is to pulpy sci-fi space operas such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

With so many details spread throughout the movie, some aspects feel somewhat lacking. In particular, so much detail is applied to movie's fictitious world (a world where there's even a black market for dead Kaiju parts) that the characters feel more like broad personality types than fully-developed individuals. We see bits and pieces of who they are and their roles within the beleaguered, monster-pummeled society they represent but not much more than that; at times, it almost feels like watching Top Gun with giant robots instead of fighter jets. Yet del Toro's enthusiasm for the material permeates every aspect of the film, so I enjoyed geeking out with him just to see what kind of unique interpretations he could put on machines and monsters that are so closely associated with Japanese pop culture. To say that del Toro went above and beyond what he set out to do is an understatement, making this one of his best films to date.

If you don't understand why anyone would want to make a big-budget, live-action film based on anime and manga stories about giant robots, then Pacific Rim probably isn't for you. Otherwise, if you love big brawling 'bots and are looking for an example of CGI done right, then go grab some popcorn and treat yourself to del Toro's magnum mecha opus.

The Fantastic Four(th): A Review of Lou & Yana's JawsFest 4 DVD

They said they wouldn't do it ... but the fans demanded otherwise. Thus, with great pleasure I had the privilege of recently receiving a screener copy of Lou & Yana's JawsFest 4: Revenge of the Finatics DVD. This DVD marks fourth and final installment in Lou and Dianna "Yana" Pisano's series of fan-made videos that are devoted to Jaws, the franchise that it spawned, and the locations at Martha's Vineyard and elsewhere that made the franchise possible.

Of course, the Pisanos' previous trilogy of JawsFest DVDs are extremely comprehensive about Jaws and its connections to Martha's Vineyard, so what could possibly be left to cover? PLENTY. Read on for my complete review of Lou & Yana's JawsFest 4, a DVD with plenty of interviews, location tours, sing-a-longs, and shark jumpings.

For those of you who are familiar with the previous three Lou & Yana's JawsFest DVDs know, their productions are mostly tied to the JawsFest events that were held in Martha's Vineyard. The first DVD features footage from the first JawsFest in 2005, while the third DVD features footage from another Jaws event (a pseudo-JawsFest) in 2011. JawsFest 4 covers JawsFest: The Tribute, the third (and possibly last) Jaws-centric Martha's Vineyard event that was held in 2012. I wasn't able to attend any of these events, so I'm very thankful that the Pisanos made the effort to capture footage from each of them and make it available to other Jaws fans who couldn't be there in person and who may never visit Martha's Vineyard at all.

JawsFest 4 does a commendable job in providing the highlights of JawsFest: The Tribute. It features cameos from many franchise alumni, including Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Lee Fierro, Joe Alves, Carl Gottlieb and Tom Dunlop. Even special effects wizard Greg Nicotero makes an appearance due to his astonishing contributions to the event that included life-sized replicas of Jaws actors Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. There were Jaws screenings, autograph tables and panel discussions--including a panel called "The Women of Jaws" that was hosted by none other than Yana Pisano herself!

Yana Pisano (far right) and "The Women of Jaws".

In previous JawsFest DVDs, the Pisanos visit many sites on the island that were featured in Jaws, Jaws 2 and Jaws: Revenge; in JawsFest 4, the Pisanos up the ante through their active involvement in several JawsFest events. The DVD shows them acting as tour guides, both on the water and in a bus, alongside fellow "Finatic" Jim Beller. Not only has Beller appeared in the previous JawsFest DVDs and worked with Matt Taylor in assembling photos for the book Jaws: Memories From Martha's Vineyard, he also had items from his vast collection of franchise memorabilia put on display in Jaws- and shark-related museum exhibits in both the U.S. and abroad. For JawsFest 4, Beller contributed some video footage from a July 2012 exhibition called SHARK, which was curated by famed marine conservationist, author, and painter Richard Ellis at the Nova Southeastern University’s Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Why the Chamber of Commerce of Martha's Vineyard doesn't have the Pisanos and Beller on retainer is still a mystery to me.

JawsFest: The Tribute is only part of JawsFest 4; it also includes footage from the Jaws ride at the Universal Studios theme park in Florida, a ride that closed in January 2012. The DVD features plenty of Jaws 2 stuff, including footage of Florida locations seen in the sequel and a Jaws 2 cast reunion that was held in Los Angeles in March 2012. These tidbits neatly dovetail with Lou Pisano's other recent Jaws 2 efforts: Not only was his three-part retrospective, "The Guts of Jaws 2: Appreciating An Underappreciated Sequel", published in SCREAM magazine (you can read the entire article here), but he is also at work with Michael Smith on an upcoming book about the sequel. (Smith also helped with the production of JawsFest 4.)

The Pisanos, adrift in a sea of Finatics on Martha's Vineyard.

Yet with all of the interesting Jaws stuff that it offers, JawsFest 4 wouldn't be entertaining if it weren't for the Pisanos and their merry band of Finatics. Since the release of their first JawsFest video, Lou and Yana have been making a name for themselves within the fan community and building a fan base of their own. By the time JawsFest 4 rolled into production, plenty of Finatics were willing to contribute whatever they could to bring the JawsFest series to a delightful close. If you've seen the previous DVDs, you'll see plenty of familiar faces on the screen; even "Sir" Edward McCormack and Mike "Quint" Hadji, two Finatics from England, contributed some amusing video clips from their corner of the globe as part of the series' finale. Furthermore, the Pisanos have a wonderful chemistry as a couple and that chemistry, along with their infectious enthusiasm, carries over into each of the fan projects they do. In short, if they're having fun you'll be having fun too, and JawsFest 4 is a big bundle of fin-tastic fun.

Click here to learn more about how to get a copy of JawsFest 4 and other related DVDs. While the JawsFest DVD series is officially over, the Pisanos have plenty more "Fests" in store for fans like you and me. In addition to the aforementioned Jaws 2 book project, they also have produced the HalloweenFest DVDs, a short movie trilogy that's a tribute to John Carpenter's classic slasher films, and Lou & Yana's TalkFest, an ongoing online radio show that airs weekly on the Blog Talk Radio site. TalkFest recently recorded its 100th episode and the Pisanos also produced the Lou & Yana's TalkFest: The Movie DVD, a video that was recorded during JawsFest: The Tribute and is a companion piece of sorts to JawsFest 4.

JawsFest 4: Revenge of the Finatics--I've got mine!

Crayola Encourages Budding Kaiju Fans Through Its Create 2 Destroy Toy Line

Imagine this holiday shopping scenario: You're a life-long fan of giant monster movies and want to foster an appreciation of such entertainment in the next generation of geeks--your kids, your nieces and nephews, or both. However, you think that they're too young to grasp the finer points of such giant monster mashes such as Godzilla, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and Pacific Rim, so you have no idea what to get them for Christmas. Well, never fear because Crayola has got your back this year with its Create 2 Destroy line of playsets.

The Create 2 Destroy playsets aren't strictly kaiju merchandise, but they might as well be because half of the playsets involve giant monsters trashing a city, a shopping mall, and a suburban community. These playsets make up the Dino Destruction sub-series, where kids use Morphix (Crayola's answer to Play-Doh) to mold cars, buildings and trees that the included dinosaurs can stomp with their feet and crush with their jaws. Some of the dinosaurs have spring-loaded tails that kids can use as catapults to launch Morphix-molded boulders into nearby targets.

The other Create 2 Destroy sub-series, Fortress Invasion, are designed to have kids build fortresses, castles and walls with the goal of knocking them down by using the included catapults. While these playsets don't include any monsters, adult fans of King Kong can buy their kids a Dino Destruction playset and a Fortress Invasion playset that so they can imagine dinosaurs tearing through the enormous protective wall on Skull Island. This is the kind of stuff that brings geek families closer together during the holiday season!

Painting Giant Robot Model Kits Anime Style

I love detailed miniature replicas of monsters, robots and spaceships from my favorite horror and sci-fi franchises, but the ability to competently assemble model kits of such replicas has always eluded me. I particularly admire those who can paint kits of robots, spaceships and other machines in a way that makes them look used (exposed to the elements, battle damage, etc.). In fact, I frequently regarded this kind of modeling skill as a remarkable achievement ... and then I saw this:

Yes, this really is a photo of a plastic model kit.

From what I read on Kotaku, a talented model builder in Japan has painted a Valkyrie kit from the Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime series (which is known to some as Robotech) in a cel shading style that makes the model appear as if it was pulled directly out of the Macross cartoon.

This makes sense, actually--since the Valkyrie design was originally intended for animation, why not paint a Valkyrie model kit like it was part of a cartoon? The picture below provides an overview of how each piece of the kit was painted to achieve the comprehensive anime look.

Click here to see the article about this kit on Kotaku. Click here to see the original Japanese post of this kit, which features many more pictures of the finished product.

Alien Franchise Update: Reboots, Sequels, and a Prequel Sequel

As a horror and sci-fi nerd, I do what I can to keep my franchise scorecard up to date. Right now, Star Wars and the superhero universes of DC and Marvel are currently developing a selection of movie and TV releases, while many other franchises are stuck in some form of reboot--either making another reboot sequel (Star Trek), preparing to release a reboot (RoboCop), or starting pre-production of a reboot (Terminator). I've also been keeping current with developments in the Alien franchise, which has a number of projects in development but only one movie in the works. Read on for more details about what 20th Century Fox has in store for the horror franchise where no one can hear you scream.

Comic Books: The only reboot that's planned right now for the Alien universe is being done by Dark Horse for its lines of Aliens, Predator and Aliens vs. Predator comics. According to io9's interview with the creative team behind the reboots, the new comics are being planned in conjunction with each other along with Dark Horse's new line of Prometheus comics. Presumably, this new expanded Alien, Engineer and Predator universe will be much more unified than the previous Dark Horse comics, which I think is a step in the right direction.

While the new comics will regard all of the previous stand-alone movies as canon, it appears that the AvP movies will not be referenced in any way by the new comics. Then again, since those movies cribbed most of their key ideas from Dark Horse's AvP comics anyway (such as Predators hunting Aliens as a rite of passage and the possibility of Alien-Predator hybrids), I don't think that the omission of specific details from those films will make much of a difference in the new comic stories.

Movies: So far, the only movie that's planned for the Alien franchise is a sequel to Prometheus, the 2012 Alien prequel. Director Ridley Scott and cast member Michael Fassbender have both confirmed that Prometheus 2 will happen and it will most likely go into production in 2015.

Video Games: Even though Sega's Aliens: Colonial Marines was a disaster, that hasn't discouraged the company from trying its hand at publishing another Alien game. According to Kotaku, Sega is overseeing the development of a new game called Alien: Isolation that will place a greater emphasis on survival tactics over run-and-gun action. Isolation will take place on a space station and most of the game will feature only a single Alien; however, the most interesting details about this game are that its protagonist will be Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, and its other characters will include clones. (FYI, Amanda is mentioned in the extended director's cut of Aliens, not the theatrical release.)

Amanda's presence in Isolation suggests that it will take place between Alien and Aliens, although why Amanda is being used at all outside of her obvious connection to Ripley remains a mystery. Furthermore, clones don't appear in the Alien saga until Alien Resurrection, which takes place 200 years after Alien 3. Perhaps Isolation will provide more background details about certain plot points in Resurrection, but that's just speculation for now.

Novels: A new novel entitled Alien: Out of the Darkness will be published in January 2014. Written by Tim Lebbon, Out of the Darkness is the first of a trilogy of novels that take place between Alien and Aliens. The other two books in the trilogy are being written by other authors, but each novel has been developed under the supervision of 20th Century Fox with the intent of making them part of franchise canon. Whether the new novel trilogy will have any connections to the Alien: Isolation game is currently unknown.

Lebbon has already said in interviews that the plot of Out of the Darkness will involve Ripley and Ash. According to him, some of Ash's android consciousness remained alive in the computer of the Narcissus escape pod, but he hasn't said how Ripley will be involved in the story while also remaining in hypersleep. I'm guessing that the novel with have a situation along the lines of the early scenes of Prometheus where the android David was watching Elizabeth Shaw's dreams--maybe the disembodied Ash will be invading the dreams of Ripley.

I think that each of these projects have great potential for continuing and expanding the Alien universe. However, the fact that 20th Century Fox is only willing to develop "canon" stories in video games and novels suggests to me how reluctant it is to commit to a new Alien movie project. Ridley Scott may still be working on Prometheus 2, but that doesn't mean that Fox couldn't support the production of a new Alien movie in the meantime. Furthermore, even though Fox is willing to label certain non-movie Alien projects as franchise canon, it's questionable as to whether such classifications will be maintained over time. For example, the Colonial Marines game was hyped as being "canon", but I suspect that the game's poor sales and critical drubbing has since caused Fox to retract that claim.

Shogun Warrior-Sized Bender Challenges You to Bite His Colossal Metal Ass

Good news, everyone! Futurama may be officially cancelled (for now), but its merchandising license lives on in a variety of collectibles. This month, Toynami is releasing a limited edition Shogun Warrior version of Bender that's 24-inches tall and includes spring-loaded arms for fist-firing action. I'm not sure if this version of Bender has any other features, so I don't know if this chest panel opens or how many points of articulation he has. Nevertheless, if you're willing to pay the $150 price for this collectible item, you can have Bender pick fights with other Shogun Warrior robots and terrorize 6-inch scale Futurama action figures.

Network Television was Better Off with Better Off Ted

I have to give Netflix credit: Because of its wide selection of television titles, it’s a great resource for me to find high-quality but short-lived series that somehow escaped my attention when they were originally aired. (This is a welcome change from most television syndication arrangements, where only popular shows are aired repeatedly on channels other than the one that originally aired them.) In fact, it was thanks to Netflix that I found Better Off Ted, a wickedly intelligent satire of corporate culture that aired for two 13 episode seasons on ABC from 2009 to 2010.

Better Off Ted is a half-hour sitcom that takes place in the offices of Veridian Dynamics, a monolithic mega-corporation that engages in all sorts of odd and amoral activities to increase worker productivity and maximize profits, often at the expense of everyone and everything else. The characters consist of the titular Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), a single father who heads Veridian’s research and development department; Ted’s intimidating, hyper-competitive boss Veronica Palmer (Portia de Rossi); and Ted’s underlings, product tester Linda Zwordling (Andrea Anders) and product development scientists Phil Myman (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem Hewitt (Malcolm Barrett).

While the interplay among the characters provide the plots for the episodes, most of the jokes in Better Off Ted are targeted directly at the behavior of modern-day corporations and their approach to people and science--or, as Lem puts it in one episode, “the place science goes to bend over and grab its ankles”. Throughout the series, various Veridian products become the subject of absurd and dark humor, such as its revolutionary cure for baldness (that is also a parasite) and a sound device that can deliver messages straight into a person’s brain (and can also cause uncontrollable, explosive vomiting when set at high frequencies). In a way, Veridian is less openly violent but just as misanthropic as Omni Consumer Products, the devious military-industrial conglomerate in Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop. Indeed, notorious mad scientists such as Frankenstein, Jekyll and Moreau would feel right at home in the laboratories of Veridian Dynamics.

I love Better Off Ted and if you love comedy that is smart, sinister and strange, then you should check it out too.